


Dog New Tricks

by enigma731



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Gen, and also pizza dog, cats are very important, everything is cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“So my dog is in love with your cat,” says Clint, still staring as if this is the strangest thing he’s ever seen, as if they weren’t fighting a horde of perpetually spawning aliens a few short weeks ago.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog New Tricks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samalander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/gifts).



> (Minor spoilers for Black Widow #1)
> 
> I had to. Because cats. I'm not even a little sorry.

The first time Natasha sees the dog, she nearly pulls her gun. 

She’s taking out a bag of trash--regular trash, there isn’t even any blood--when something inside the dumpster moves. Natasha freezes, listening. There are no immediate signs of an impending attack, but her instincts never take a day off, the fledgling demons she’s created while trying to exorcise older spirits always close to the surface.

There’s a rustling noise, a muffled crash, and then a sleek black head comes into view above the mottled green edge of the dumpster. 

“Liho,” says Natasha, her voice tinged with disapproval. “Really? I thought you had better discretion than this.”

The cat yawns and stretches, blinking indifferently at her. She’s about to berate him further when another wave of movement disturbs the trash, and her hand flies to the gun at her hip, hidden beneath the bulky length of her coat. A dog appears next to Liho, yellow fur matted with remnants of garbage. One eye is missing, she notices--a battle scar of unknown origin. 

“That’s it,” says Natasha, straightening and letting her hand fall away from the gun. “I’m not petting you for at least a week.” 

She disposes of her bag and walks away without another word.

* * *

Four days later, she’s undressing after returning from a job in Beijing when a muffled bump at her balcony door throws her back onto the defensive. 

This time she reaches for the knife that’s still concealed in her boot, pulls the curtains aside--and is met with two noses pressed pitifully to the glass, two tails waving back and forth insistently, as if to remind her how cold it is outside. 

Natasha stares them down for a moment before sighing and opening the door. “Fine. You win. But stay off the furniture.”

Liho darts inside, followed by the dog, who this time appears to be mercifully garbage-free. Thank goodness for small blessings. 

Both animals eye the couch wistfully for a moment, but seem adequately deterred by the glare Natasha shoots in their direction. The dog makes his way over to the thick area rug, turns in a circle three times, and flops down. To her amazement, Liho noses up under one floppy ear, stretches out, and falls asleep. 

“Unbelievable,” she mutters, but decides to leave them in peace as she goes to see about a shower.

* * *

It becomes a pattern. 

Natasha finds them waiting for her, noses pressed to the glass, every time she comes home to her place in New York. 

She lets them in, grudgingly at first, and later with a silent kind of affection she won’t allow herself to quantify. They stay in the living room, always, sometimes napping on the rug and other times playing a secret sort of games. 

After a while, they leave her to her solitude. But they always come back. 

It becomes a strange sort of comfort, after a while, though she’ll never tell them that.

* * *

Two months into the peculiar routine, Natasha is watching Liho and the dog bat an old tennis ball back and forth across her living room when there’s a knock at her front door. It’s still early evening, but she isn’t expecting anyone and she can’t think which of her associates would come unannounced. 

“Clint,” she groans, as she glances at the security camera she keeps monitoring the hallway. Of course that’s the answer--the only person who’d be both brazen and trusting enough to simply walk up and knock at her home.

But he blinks at her when she opens the door, his expression unexpectedly blank. “Nat?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “What, you were expecting someone else?”

“I--” He shakes himself. “Right. Forgot you kept a place here in the city. Besides the Tower, I mean.”

“So--what, you thought you were knocking on a random door?” asks Natasha, suddenly wondering whether she needs to worry that his memory’s been wiped again, or possibly that this Clint might be from a parallel reality. 

“No.” He sighs. “I wanted to see where Lucky--my dog--He’s been disappearing lately. Wanted to see where he went. Followed him here.”

“Your dog,” says Natasha stepping back to let Clint inside and watching as Liho licks one yellow paw. The dog blinks once, seems to interpret the gesture as some sort of signal, and promptly flops down in a large furry puddle. “His name is Lucky?”

“Yeah.” Clint shrugs. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” He looks as though he’s thinking about saying something else, but then doesn’t. “Why?”

“Liho.” She watches as the cat’s ears prick up at the mention of his name. “It means--misfortune. Ill fate.”

Clint laughs. “You named your cat for a bad omen? You would.”

“He’s not my cat.”

“He’s in your house. You _named_ him,” says Clint. “He’s your cat.”

Natasha quirks an eyebrow. “Really? That’s a rule?”

“Yes.” He crosses his arms. “It’s in the Guide to Responsible Pet Ownership.”

“Well.” She lets the corners of her lips lift in a triumphant half-smile. “Then I’m surprised you’d know anything about it.”

He laughs, watching as Liho begins to groom Lucky’s face with quick pink darts of tongue. The dog exhales a long, snuffling breath of contentment and lets his head loll to the side. 

“So my dog is in love with your cat,” says Clint, still staring as if this is the strangest thing he’s ever seen, as if they weren’t fighting a horde of perpetually spawning aliens a few short weeks ago. 

“He’s not my cat,” Natasha insists. “And _love_ is a very strong word.” 

A few feet away, Liho arches upward and touches his nose to Lucky’s. 

Clint sighs. “What do we do now?”

Natasha bites back her instinctive response, that they don’t have to _do_ anything, the animals are free to do as they please, be that cuddling on the warm rug or plotting to take over the world. He knows that just as well as she does, she thinks, but he’s making an effort at conversation. She forgets, sometimes--sometimes on purpose--that Clint is not a fool, that he understands things about her life few other people ever will. 

“I don’t know,” she says after a moment. “I was thinking about dinner. Do you think you might need to stay and observe them further?” It’s been a long while since she’s shared an honest meal with anyone, spent time with another person and no agenda. 

Clint grins, like she’s just offered him a front row seat to the most desirable event in the world. “I think I might need to take a full report.”


End file.
